Published , by Chris Jarrard
Published , by Chris Jarrard
Earlier today, Intel took the opportunity to formally introduce its newest generation of consumer desktop processors, dubbed Alder Lake. Alder Lake will be sold under Intel’s 12th-gen branding along with the new Z690 motherboard platform. These new CPUs and motherboards are the first to support DDR5 memory and PCI-E Gen 5.
The initial Alder Lake offering will consist of six CPU models. These parts are aimed at hardcore gamers and enthusiasts as they offer the highest possible performance, but also bring a premium price. More budget-oriented options in the 12th-gen Alder Lake family of CPUs are expected to come early next year. Today’s launch is headlined by the Core i9-12900K which serves as the flagship CPU of the line. It features 16 cores and 24 threads. The 11th-gen flagship CPU, the Core i9-11900K had 8 cores and sixteen threads.
Alder Lake is a notable release for Intel because it marks the first wide release of products built on Intel’s 7 process (10nm), allowing for higher performance and efficiency when matched against its previous 14nm process. Intel has been launching CPUs on the 14nm process dating back to early 2015 and the release of the Core i7-6700K.
The new 12th-gen processors are also notable for featuring a completely new architecture that Intel refers to as a hybrid design. It pairs Performance cores (P-Cores) with Efficient cores (E-Cores). Intel’s Thread Director intelligently distributes workloads across CPU threads for the best possible performance. Intel claims this new hybrid design has pushed its 12th-gen parts to new performance heights. The Core i9-12900K is said to offer massive gen-over-gen gains in gaming performance. Intel specifically mentioned a nearly 30 percent fps boost in Hitman 3 and a nearly 25 percent boost in Far Cry 6 when compared to the 11th-gen Core i9-11900K.
Along with the new CPUs comes the 600-series motherboard chipsets. The first on shelves will be the enthusiast-oriented Z690. The Z690 chipset offers support for new DDR5 memory modules, PCI-E Gen 5 (up to 16 lanes), Thunderbolt 4, and Intel’s Killer Wi-Fi 6E. Support for all the newest USB standards is included. Z690 also offers Intel VMD on consumer-level hardware for the first time. This allows direct control and management of NVMe-based SSDs from the PCIe bus without additional RAID controllers or other hardware adaptors.
The 12th-gen Alder Lake parts will officially go on sale on November 4 and many retailers have begun accepting pre-orders already. For the full list of new CPUs, including part numbers, features, and pricing, you can visit Intel’s official Alder Lake landing page.